Following a weekend of tumult and upheaval, Sam Altman has returned as CEO of OpenAI. Three new board members have taken the place of the previous leadership that attempted to remove Altman. It looks as though the new OpenAI board is not yet complete, and discussions are allegedly being held to secure someone from Microsoft or another key investor. Here's a look at who is now in, who is out, and what the repercussions of this may be.
After a weekend of upheaval, Sam Altman has reclaimed his position as OpenAI's CEO. The new board now governing the company is noticeable for its diverse background in business and technology, with three new board members replacing the prior leadership. Rumours suggest that negotiations are ongoing with Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, or other investors, to appoint a representative onto the board. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, spoke to CNBC this week about the need for a change in leadership, affirming his support for the new board in a tweet post on X. Moreover, Microsoft, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, and Tiger Global, who had previously been pushing to reinstate Altman, do not yet have representation on the board. This major shift in OpenAI leadership brings new questions and implications for the future.
Board member of Shopify, Bret Taylor, is a former co-CEO of Salesforce and was Twitter's final board chair prior to Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media platform. He co-founded Quip, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2016, leading him to the top ranks of the enterprise software company in 2021, prior to his departure in January. In February, Taylor collaborated with a former Google executive to start his own artificial intelligence venture. It is uncertain if his role in the new venture will be affected by his appointment to lead OpenAI's board. Taylor has not responded to CNBC's request for comment.
Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary under the Clinton administration and former President of Harvard University, is an economist whose connections in Washington could prove beneficial to OpenAI following increased regulatory pressure from lawmakers. Late last year, Summers described the popular generative chatbot, ChatGPT, as "the most important general-purpose technology since the wheel or fire" during an interview with Bloomberg. Summers is also a board member of Block, a financial technology company led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and Skillsoft, an educational technology company. His presidency at Harvard ended in 2006 due to criticism over comments he made regarding gender representation in STEM fields, for which he later issued an apology.
Adam D'Angelo is the only remaining member of OpenAI's former board. He was appointed in 2018 and played a large role in the negotiations that led to Altman's return as CEO. D'Angelo is the current CEO of Quora and is developing an AI chat platform called Poe. He was previously the CTO of Meta (formerly known as Facebook) from 2006 to 2008. Since Altman's dismissal, he has not made any public statements but did RT a post implying his motives were not out of "crazy" or "vindictive" intent. D'Angelo has not yet responded to CNBC's request for comment.
Helen Toner is a researcher and director of strategy and foundational research grants at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Previously, Toner was an advisor on AI policy at Open Philanthropy. In October, Toner wrote a paper that could be seen as criticism to OpenAI, a move which Altman reportedly had rebuttal to. Toner suggested in the paper that OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT tempted other tech companies to initiate their own chatbots without proper safety and ethics reviews. Additionally, Toner was among those in charge of Altman's ousting, although she has not responded to previous attempts by CNBC to contact her.
In 2018, Tasha McCauley joined OpenAI's board. She is an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corporation and prior to this she was the CEO of GeoSim Systems, which developed an automated city modeling system. In 2015, her marital status was made public when her husband, actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt, announced the union. McCauley has not commented since Altman's dismissal on Friday and did not respond to requests for comment from CNBC.
Ilya Sutskever is the co-founder and current Chief Scientist of OpenAI. He had previously been part of the board of directors that ousted Altman, but in a post on X, Sutskever repudiated his support for them and eventually signed a letter along with the majority of OpenAI employees demanding the board's resignation. Despite this, he was removed from the board, and his position as an executive within OpenAI remains the same. Sutskever holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, and previously had a post-doctoral stint at Stanford, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has authored or co-authored more than 130 research papers on AI, neural networks, and generative AI, as mentioned in his Google Scholar profile. He was close to fellow OpenAI executive, Greg Brockman; in 2019, Sutskever officiated Brockman's wedding at OpenAI headquarters, reportedly due to a personal plea from Brockman's wife.
Semafor reported that Altman had been trying to increase the size of OpenAI's board for many months, and it appears unlikely that it will stay the same. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft had requested the board become larger with more experienced members. While it's uncertain what other sort of securities or authority Microsoft might have, the composition of the new board members - established technology and business leaders - demonstrates OpenAI may be more of a regular Silicon Valley enterprise. Nevertheless, OpenAI will continue to be a capped-profit organization owned by a charity, meaning any extra income will go to the charity.
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